


Musings

by UndyingEmbers



Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: Drawing, F/M, Femdom, Fluff, Nudity, Very mild dom/sub undertones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-10-09
Packaged: 2020-11-28 16:15:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20969396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UndyingEmbers/pseuds/UndyingEmbers
Summary: After going through some of her artwork, Tekēhu asks the Watcher to draw him like one of her Vailian girls.A somewhat rambling drabble of thoughts on a night they spend together.





	Musings

**Author's Note:**

> My Watcher is a death godlike artist from Old Vailia.

Tekēhu was never one for cramped spaces. After all, it would be a mortal sin to contain greatness such as his, to keep him away from the churning waters and the salty air. He never thought that he would find contentment in the comfortable, but relatively small quarters of his captain.

And he did come to love this little place, but it was most certainly because of the cabin’s owner. He and the other godlike had shared many intimate moments down here, and not just the physical (though there was no shortage of that). Tekēhu never knew that he didn’t need to take off his garments in order to lay himself bare before another, or vice versa. He and Amali would compare stories down here. He could put aside the expectations of his people and just be vulnerable in her arms.

He’d lie on her bed and watch her paint. When they were out at sea, Amali would work ceaselessly on her mural on her cabin wall, that of a great, foreboding stone wall lined with creeping vines that grew in the Dyrwood. Ivy, that plant was called, and a bush of dark red roses to the side, their stems filled with thorns. It hadn’t taken him long to realize that she was painting a little piece of Caed Nua, in remembrance, she had said, of what had been lost.

What he loved better than looking at the painting was looking at the artist, the way her painted lips pursed in concentration, the way her hips sometimes shifted when she stepped back to look at her work, the way she carefully mixed the paints to get her desired color.

“I hope I’m not boring you.” She had the most alluring Vailian accent, not as strong as Pallegina’s or that of the other Vailians Tekēhu had met, but still audible, just a touch, and she was less prone to pepper her speech with Vailian words than other foreigners Tekēhu had met in Nekataka.

“Ekera, never think such things,” he said.

Rolling over on the bed, he caught a glimpse of a brown, leather-bound sketchbook poking out from underneath.

“Ah, some of my old stuff,” she said. Tekēhu looked up at her to see that she was looking back at him. “Feel free to take a look.”

He could tell from the first few pages that her art style was much different from his. Not only did her drawings display the Vailian obsession with details and measurements and machines, but her style took on a much darker tone than his. In that book, he found sketches upon sketches of the decrepit alleyways of the Old Vailian city she had grown up in, full of garbage and filth; portraits of old beggars, every line on their face pronounced and traced; monsters that she had encountered in the Dyrwood, their visages as horrifying as the stories behind them; schematics for bizarre machines. Tekēhu’s sculptures were of things he loved most from the Deadfire: fish swimming gracefully in the water, oysters with pearls in their mouths, patterns in the waves, and majestic boats plowing through the sea.

And phalluses. Of course, no one should forget the phalluses.

At one point, Amali put down her paints and sat next to him on the bed.

Tekēhu also saw a lot of nudes in that sketchbook, drawings of women in various poses, their every contour and blemish, good and bad, have been drawn with great care.

“My _pare_* would hire prostitutes as models to save money,” she said. “When I moved out, I continued the practice. It was a good way to support them.” She smiled. “One time, I brought in a new girl, and forgot to tell her why I hired her—my usual models always know what I bring them in for—so when I told her to take off her clothes and lie on the couch, she thought nothing of it until about an hour later when she turned to me and asked if I was going to actually _do_ anything.”

Tekēhu laughed. “And what did my brave captain do next?”

A touch of color tinted her face. “I was mortified! I handed her her money and shooed her out.”

He laughed again. “What happened to the drawing?”

“I tore it up,” she said. “I felt terrible drawing her without her consent, I couldn’t really keep it.”

She flipped through some more pages a loose leaf fell out, another nude. This one was drawn by a different hand, and the woman was Amali herself.

“I sometimes modeled when money was low,” she said. “Not many artists got to see a death godlike, so I got called fairly often.”

“It was your beauty that drew them in, I say.”

“Flatterer.” She smiled.

“Could you draw _me_?” Tekēhu asked. “I am quite different from those women from Old Vailia. Better-looking, I say.”

“If you really want me to.”

“I do,” he said.

“All right, then.” She stood up with a flourish, taking her sketchbook with her. “Undress.”

He also stood up. He effortlessly undid the knot on his sarong and let the colorful robe fall to the floor, revealing his impressive tackle.

It was hard to tell where Amali was looking, due to the large tumors covering her eyes, but Tekēhu swore he saw her mouth fall open just a bit before she caught herself.

“Magnificent,” she said. “Now the pose…”

She had him try many different poses until she decided to have him lie on the bed. He was a bit disappointed when Amali didn’t ask to touch him or respond to some of his covert advances, even when her hand went under his knee and moved his leg into position.

When her soft hands cupped his face, however, it was as if time had stopped. His face relaxed, and he found himself seeking her eyes, even under those bulbous tumors.

After a sweet moment of silence, she whispered. “Like this.” She tilted his head, and Tekēhu allowed himself to be molded like clay. Nothing could be helped about his hair tentacles, which sought her hands and wouldn’t stay still no matter how much she tried to brush them away.

Finally, when she got him into place, she smiled softly. “_Belfetto_.” She brushed the corner of his lips with her thumb as she pulled her hand away. Tekēhu sighed and nearly shuddered at the loss of contact.

She grabbed a chair, some charcoal, and a sketchpad and set to work. Every stroke of the charcoal was careful and deliberate. Her full lips pursed in concentration once again as she hunched slightly over the sketchbook, occasionally looking up at him.

Tekēhu had seen Vailian drawings and paintings before. He once felt that this kind of style was cold and uncaring, like the artists were more concerned about capturing and confining their subjects of their art instead of celebrating them. But seeing Amali at work, seeing how much _care_ she put into every detail—good and bad—and how much she loved the subjects of her works, how could he not be moved?

“Do you like what you are seeing, captain?” Tekēhu asked.

Amali looked up, smiling deviously. “I assure you, I’m enjoying every moment of this.”

Tekēhu settled back in. The sound of charcoal on paper, the delicate but steady movements of her hand, and her intense concentration were strangely hypnotic. Tekēhu let himself get lost in this calmness, this connection he had with her.

He did not cage love, but he wouldn’t mind being captured right now. In this moment, he wouldn’t mind being scrutinized and dissected, if Amali could take every bit of him and lock it away in her sketchbook, safe between the pages with her other treasures, where his people would never find him.

“I wonder what kind of life I would have had if I had been born outside the Deadfire,” he said. “If I could keep Ngati’s gift, but have people’s eyes pass me over.”

“You could not,” said Amali. “You’d only be noticed in a different way.”

“Ekera,” said Tekēhu, “but surely it wouldn’t be so unbearable.”

The etching abruptly stopped. The corner of her mouth twitched.

“Amali I…”

She smiled sadly, shaking her head. “A lot of us are killed at birth. Especially the death godlike.” She almost idly touched one of her bumpy tumors. “People still think we’re harbingers of death or bad luck, so they try to get rid of us.”

“People kill their _children_?” Tekēhu asked. “I…did not know that.” What kind of irrational fear would drive someone to kill their own children? By now, surely enough people would know that the godlike were no more dangerous than anyone else. It seemed the longer Tekēhu journeyed, the more apparent it became that he knew absolutely nothing of the world.

Amali walked over to the bed and sat down in front of his chest. She held his shaking hand. This was completely backwards. She shouldn’t be the one comforting _him_ over this.

“When I was a baby, I was left to die in a gutter. I only survived because an artist found me and took me in.”

“I’m sorry,” said Tekēhu. “This is…Even the children of Tangaloa are respected and revered among the Huana.”

“But we’re still frightening.” Tekēhu found that he had no argument against that. He had been there when the aumaua children had run from her, crying about a monster. At the time, Amali had laughed it off, but…

“At any rate, it isn’t about godlike getting ‘proper respect’.” Her hand was steady as she held his, even as she told him these awful truths. “I don’t want to be worshiped. I just…want to be loved.”

Tekēhu wrapped his fingers around hers.

“I love you,” he said.

She smiled and kissed him on the forehead. “I love you too.”

She pulled back. “I was lucky. I really love my _pare_. They are worth more than both my birth parents and Berath combined.”

After squeezing his hand one last time, she helped him get back into his pose. He let her continue her work, determined not to say anything else that would interrupt her flow. He could lie there for an eternity, naked, vulnerable, and completely in her hands.

At last, she made the final stroke on the paper. She turned her sketchpad around to show him the finished product. It was accurate, that was to say it was absolutely amazing.

“Beautiful, I say.”

“I’m glad you like it,” said Amali. She pulled the drawing out of the book and started to hand it to him, but Tekēhu held a hand up.

“I want you to keep it,” he said.

“All right.” She gently tucked it back in.

A bit of charcoal had gotten smudged on her cheek. When they both stood to face one another, Tekēhu coaxed a bit of water from his waterskin onto his thumb and washed it off. His hand lingered, caressing her face. The bumps on her tumors were smooth and hard. She leaned her face into his hand and kissed his palm.

**Author's Note:**

> *_Pare_ is a Vailian word that I made up. It means "parent"


End file.
